Are lake levels affected by climate change?

Answers

According to Science Daily, the water level in the Great Lakes has remained steady for the past century but new evidence suggests that it could change as the climate changes. In the past, the water level in the Lakes fluctuated based on the advance and retreat of glaciers. However, more recent fluctuations were caused by dry conditions.

“Our future will likely be a combination of water level changes from greenhouse gases and from natural climatic variations at annual and decadal time periods,” said John Magnuson, a University of Wisconsin-Madison professor emeritus who helped assess aquatic impacts for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Together, he said, the two influences are likely to lead every 15 to 25 years to lower lows than the lakes have experienced in their more recent history. “We’ll probably see fewer future impacts of high-water years and more future impacts of low-water years,” he said.